President Trump Signs Executive Order to Halt Federal Support for Gender Transition Procedures for Minors Under 19

The order requires the Department of Health and Human Services to review and revise medical guidelines related to gender-affirming care. It specifically singles out the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and its Standards of Care, calling them lacking in “scientific integrity.” HHS is instructed to publish a review of the existing literature on gender dysphoria and develop alternative guidelines, while agencies like the Department of Justice are tasked with investigating providers and enforcing stricter legal measures against what the order terms “deceptive practices.”

President Donald Trump issued a wide-ranging executive order on Tuesday directing the Department of Health and Human Services and other federal agencies to examine policies related to gender-affirming care for children and teens. The executive order — which would affect adolescents’ ability to get gender-affirming care through various insurance programs — follows a separate Pentagon directive calling for a change for transgender troops issued Monday. That order is already the subject of litigation.

Significantly, it also describes the “blatant harm” done to children by the flawed guidance from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), an organization that “lacks scientific integrity,” and tells parents that their children will kill themselves if they do not obtain so-called “gender-affirming care.” The order refers to WPATH as “junk science.”